Suffolk, England

Suffolk is on the eastern side of the country, characterised by low-lying, rich fertile soils of chalky boulder clay. In the north-west of the county this turns into light sandy soils merging into the fenlands of Cambridgeshire.

 The county is noted for its wide open skies and many of the fine 'wool churches' were funded from the agricultural wealth. From earlier times there are the artifacts from the fabulous Sutton Hoo ship burial. Most of Suffolk lies less than 100m above sea level, with the higher ground in the west. 

The region is almost devoid of rock and stone, being largely clay and sand. This is why some of the boulders are of local significance, though they would be quite unremarkable in most other parts of the country. 

Prehistoric Man has left very little legacy. There are no megalithic sites so far discovered in the county, though there are a number of Bronze Age burial mounds that have survived the plough. However, the tantalising fragments are of an incredible antiquity.

On the banks of a prehistoric river running eastwards to the sea in that distant past, someone fashioned this hand-axe found at Hoxne, on the border with Norfolk. The sites at Hoxne gave the name to the Hoxnian Interglacial period of balmy weather around 427,000 to 364,000 years ago.

The lack of stone also limits the earlier historic remains, for instance Saxon crosses are thin on the ground, both because there were not many made of stone, and also the over-enthusiasm of Cromwell's iconoclastic thugs. In particular one William Dowsing 'visited' about 250 East Anglian churches between 1643 and 1644, destroying pictures, crosses, rood lofts and stained glass. He documented his destructive trail in a journal, which is available on the web

However, the richness of the architecture and the remoteness of many of the sites means that despite these depredations there is much to admire in the county's historical remains.